Humanists encourage discussion and the use of evidence and reason, not dogma, in solving problems. This means that humanists do not necessarily agree on everything. Articles on this web site and speakers at meetings do not necessarily represent anyone else's opinion.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has voted strongly in favour of taking abortion out of criminal law right across the UK. Currently, under an 1861 law, if women have an abortion outside of circumstances that are legally permitted, they can face up to life imprisonment. In Britain, this means failing to comply […]

In a statement at the 36th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Humanists UK has joined various states in expressing concern at the growing marginalisation of religious, non-religious, and LGBT minorities in Indonesia. Despite having long accommodated a variety of different religion and belief communities, atheists are not legally recognised in […]

The leader of Lancashire County Council Geoff Driver has submitted a proposal to ban halal meat that has not been pre-stunned before slaughter from being served in the county’s schools, after it has been revealed that twenty-seven schools with a total of 12,000 pupils across the county are serving all pupils meat from suppliers where […]

Humanists UK has criticised the UK Government’s plans to end limits on religious discrimination in state school admissions during a speech at the 36th session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva. The statement was made during a debate on the UNHRC’s universal periodic review of the UK, which took place in May […]

In a landmark ruling in the Court of Protection, life-prolonging care can be withdrawn from patients who are minimally conscious or in a permanent vegetative state if both the doctors and family agree that it is in their best interests, without the intervention of a court being required. Humanists UK welcomes this decision, which places […]

With the news replete with stories of humanists and freethinkers killed and persecuted for ‘blasphemy’ around the world, Alex Sinclair-Lack asks ‘How candid can I be about my beliefs’? All humanists must grapple with the question of when it is appropriate to tell people that you don’t believe in their god, and when, if ever, […]

Last week, the Archbishop of York criticised the National Trust and Cadbury for dropping the word ‘Easter’ from the name of their annual egg hunt. This prompted Prime Minister Theresa May to take time out of her visit to the Middle East to state: ‘I think the stance they have taken is absolutely ridiculous.’ Here […]

Heroes are not the stuff of myth: they keep us safe each and every day It’s normal when confronted by horrific events someplace in the world to feel a mixture of emotions. Grief, for the victims whose stories you have read about in the papers. Anger, for the fact that such a tragedy could be […]

Young Humanists is the section of the BHA specifically for humanists aged 18-35. It runs a regular Twitter debate once a month using the hashtag #YHDebate. March’s debate took the form of an ‘ask me anything’ (AMA) with Imtiaz Shams, a BHA trustee who is also the co-founder of Faith to Faithless, which provides support and […]

As a charity that operates within the field of religion and belief, the BHA’s work on education issues tends to be associated most with its campaigning on ‘faith’ schools and against the various freedoms to discriminate along religious lines that they enjoy. What we are less well-known for, perhaps, is our decades of campaigning around […]

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities. Dearest Internet. I have found that the maxim “you just can’t win” holds up remarkably well. It turns out that by merely pointing out the fact that some person holds some opinion about some thing, one has therefore implicitly endorsed that opinion—on b […]

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities. As a short, awkward, nerdy aspie with no interest in sports, there have been few American institutions that I feel more alienated by than the National Football League. The grandiose NFL logo and the iconography of its franchises have always been, to me […]

I recently acquired an old sarsaparilla bottle, its label stating that it was intended for medical treatment of such diseases as “chronic rheumatism,” “obstinate cutaneous eruptions,” and “syphilitic conditions.” It was to be used orally, not topically. Yes, this is the same sarsaparilla long used as an herbal tea and tonic that evolved into a health drink b […]

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities. It’s safe to go to Brigham Young University now. They’re letting in Coke and Pepsi. At Wired, Michelle Dean has a big story on what is a surprising degree of drama and stress (financial, personal, political, etc.) behind the scenes at Snopes. In this s […]

As of this writing, Hurricane Maria continues to pound the Caribbean (and Puerto Rico specifically). As The New York Times reported, “Daybreak in Puerto Rico on Thursday exposed the crushing devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria - splintered homes, crumbled balconies, uprooted trees and floodwaters coursing through streets. The storm cut a path through the […]

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities. Our boss, Robyn Blumner, is in Geneva for the 36th session of the UN Human Rights Council, and yesterday she delivered an excellent statement on the persecution of atheists in Malaysia. (Don’t let yourself be distracted by the incredibly orange and fea […]

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities. The Earth continues to writhe. More than 200 people are killed in the devastation of a 7.1-magnitude earthquake across central Mexico. Joshua Partlow at the Washington Post reports: Marisela Avila Gomez, 58, was in her apartment in the capital’s cent […]

You may have heard the news—or at least the joke: there were more clowns than usual in the nation’s capital over the weekend. As Newsweek reported, “Among the thousands of protesters who took to the streets of Washington DC Saturday, some certainly did not look like your average demonstrators. Dressed in creepy clown garb and some sporting punk haircuts, app […]

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities. Check out this fascinating presentation on the Gnostic gospels, given by the wicked-smart Cynthia Grzywinski, who also happens to be my mom. (And introduced with a poem read by my college acting professor, the wicked-awesome Pam Hendrick.) Neil deGrass […]

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities. Kimberly Winston, reporting on an Annenberg study, writes an excellent and accurate lede for some ugly news. Emphasis mine: Nearly 1 in 5 Americans incorrectly believe that Muslim citizens don’t have the same First Amendment rights as other American ci […]

Simon’s talk discusses how our instinctive moral decisions are often very good, but sometimes can lead us astray. He illustrates this with examples of thought experiments known as trolleyology. If you would like to read more about how intuition can lead us astray – try Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. For an entertaining account of trolley-ology and a simple review of normative ethics, try Would you Kill the Fat Man by David Edmonds.

Listen between 1:19:15 and 1:25:30 on the time-line. It is available to listen to for the next 29 days.

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One reason people leave religions behind is to escape the rules they impose on daily life. But does humanism have its own codes?

How should a humanist live? Wary of religious dogma, humanists are often reluctant to talk about how one “ought” to live. Secularism, a reaction to the political dominance of this dogma, is focused on what the state shouldn’t do, on what people should be free to decide for themselves. This is surely good. Yet while it should be no business of the state, the question remains: how should a humanist live?

This is the challenge set to 12 humanist writers whose essays fill Everyday Humanism, a book that aims to go beyond the discussions of Meaning, the State and the Good (what the editors call “macro-ethics”) to more regular, down-to-earth and, well, everyday issues faced by humanists. The book’s contributors hail from a variety of backgrounds, from professors to chaplains to campaigners, and between them they try to paint a picture of how the everyday humanist should live.

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Ludlow and Marches Humanists invite you to an exploration and discussion on “How to be Good without God! How do Humanists handle moral dilemmas?” Tuesday 21 October, 7.30pm, at The Friends Meeting House, St Mary’s Lane, Ludlow SY8 1DZ
All welcome. For more information email: rocheforts@tiscali.co.uk

For 18 September at 7.30 pm at The Lantern, Meadow Farm Drive, Shrewsbury SY1 4NG, we are proposing a member-led discussion on the subject of whether we should or can judge the past by the moral and ethical standards of today. Should we, for example, condemn slavery and the oppression of women? This was topical recently as a result of Richard Dawkins’s comments on the sexual molestation that he and others received when he was at school.

We would be delighted to hear from anyone outside the committee who would be willing to introduce and moderate the discussion. Please contact us for reference materials to stimulate discussion.

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How do we formulate a moral system when we do not have a god to tell us what to do? Are any truths self evident?. How do our ideas on morality have any authority?

Dr James Wakefield tackled these and other questions in a wide ranging and informative talk. He explained three main ways of thinking about moral systems.

The first, ‘Natural Law’ is based on the idea that objective and unchanging facts are out there for us to discover, and that these laws would exist even when they are unrecognised. This way of thinking presupposes the goodness of human nature.

Another way of approaching morality is ‘Utilitarianism’, which supposes that an ideal morality is one which produces the greatest amount of happiness. There must be a reason for us to do what morality requires, and possibly not everyone wants to be happy. Why ought we to promote happiness? Maybe this is not a moral system at all, but merely a theory about happiness.

Finally ‘Constructivism’, where our moral rules are not objective but are constructed. This system draws its reasons from the desires, interests, beliefs and values we already have. We should act according to the best reasons we can come up with. This could collapse into moral relativism where truth becomes a matter of opinion.

There are defenders of all three theories today. Dr Wakefield claims it is uniquely human to stand back and look at moral considerations. He would put himself into the constructivist camp.

This talk stimulated much interest and a lot of questions amongst the capacity audience. We shall take up a related topic in September, and no doubt these views will inform our discussion.

Our May meeting will be on Thursday 15 May at 7.30 pm at The Lantern, Meadow Farm Drive, Shrewsbury SY1 4NG. All are welcome. Please see the Meetings and Events page for more details about our programme and attending.

Dr James Wakefield will talk about Ethics from the Inside Out: Moral Philosophy since the Death of God.

“How can there be any moral authority in the absence of a divine legislator? If there are no moral rules “written on the sky,” as it were, is morality just a matter of opinion? Of course, I think — and this is probably in line with the Humanist view — that we can still make morally authoritative claims, but the source of this authority is within humanity, not some external, mysterious legislator.”

James Wakefield recently completed a PhD at Cardiff University. His thesis examined the moral theory of the Sicilian philosopher Giovanni Gentile, and is due to be published in 2015 by Imprint Academic. Dr Wakefield is now an Honorary Research Fellow at that same university, and is working with Prof. Bruce Haddock on another book about moral and political philosophy.